"Non-lethal" or "less-lethal" weapons have been deployed by military and police for some time now, particularly in crowd control. From plastic bullets (which proved to be exceptionally lethal in Northern Ireland, starting with an 11-year-old boy in 1972) to tear gas, these weapons are ostensibly deployed to disperse crowds and quell riots, though it's pretty obvious that in the hands of a Communist government with a history of human rights abuses, less-lethal weapons are simply additions to existing arsenals intended for mass torture and crushing dissent in situations where it would be a political liability to simply run them over with tanks, shoot them in the street, or kick in their doors.

Well, one such government now has a new toy intended to do exactly that. According to the Daily Mail, China has developed a sonic rifle that delivers a "deep and monotonous sound" which actually causes the eyeballs, eardrums, internal organs, and brain of a target to vibrate at such a frequency that they become incapacitated.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it does sound a LOT like the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) which has reportedly been deployed right here in the good ole' U.S. of A.

Unlike the LRAD, however, China's noise rifle marks the first time that a sonic weapon intended for individual use has been devised. The South China Morning Post notes that the portable weapon's effects "would cause extreme discomfort, with vibrations in the eardrums, eyeballs, stomach, liver, and brain," while adding that "so far, there have been no reports of Chinese soldiers or law enforcement officers using such equipment."